Used for many centuries since the Ancient Chinese and Egyptians, Essential Oils come from the flowers, wood, peels, roots, leaves, and seeds of plants and offer various health benefits. Many are antispasmodic, antioxidant, anti-microbial, anti-viral, antifungal, and anti-inflammatory. This means that they can help soothe and treat numerous health problems and smell beautiful at the same time.
Essential oils have various uses, even making your lemon-flavoured drinking water or peppermint candy. If that wasn’t enough, they also make a great addition to your natural, eco-friendly, zero-waste cosmetics and healthcare regime and, in most cases, can be used by the whole family.
We have created a simple guide for you to help find the best quality essential oils in the UK, ensuring that you can enjoy the sense-awakening, uplifting aromas, reap the most significant health benefits and take care of the planet too. Enjoy!
Table of Contents
Top 10 Quality Essential Oils UK
Here are our favourite UK Essential Oils that we know you are going to love too. We have kept our selection broad enough to meet everyone’s needs, budgets, and requirements. Here goes-
1. Mystic Momenta Cedarwood Organic Essential Oil
Cedarwood Oil is distilled from the wood of cedar trees and has a delicate smell which takes you immediately to the beautiful sunlit forests. It is excellent for a good night’s sleep, and its aroma can reduce stress and improve focus. It has a clean and beautiful smell that can be often used as a pleasant room odour.
Used in skin treatment, it is used to treat acne and even reduce wrinkles. It can help with joint pain, sore muscles, wound healing and is a natural antibiotic.
Features
- The main active ingredients are widdrol, cedrol, thujone, and cedrene.
- Botanical Name: Cedrus Atlantica.
- Origin is Morocco, and extraction used is steam distillation.
2. Naissance Citronella Essential Oil
Citronella Essential Oil is distilled from a fragrant French grass which is often confused with lemongrass. It is a lemon-scented antibacterial oil. It has an uplifting effect on mood and both body and mind and can reduce airborne bacteria. It is suitable for lice, body odours, and headaches and can also protect hair from sun damage, reduce tangles and boost volume.
Features
● The main active ingredients are limonene, dipentene, camphene, citronellal, citral, nerol, geraniol, citronellol, borneol, and citronellic acid.
● Steam distilled
● Sourced from Indonesia
3. Nikura Pure Lemongrass Essential Oil
Often used for its subtle lemon fragrance and flavour in Thai dishes, lemongrass is also used to treat depression, anxiety, and stress. It also has antibacterial and antifungal properties making it an excellent addition to treating ringworm, athletes foot, and even skin infections.
Features
● The main active ingredients are limonene, geraniol, nerol, geranyl acetate, citronellal, citral, and myrcene.
● Botanical name: Cymbopogon flexuosus.
● Cruelty is free and ethically sourced—vegan friendly.
4. Lagunamoon Aromatherapy Essential Oils
Next on our list is the Lagunamoon Aromatherapy Essential Oils. The box set consists of six highly fragrant essential oils: Orange, Peppermint, Lemongrass, Lavender, Eucalyptus, and Tea Tree. These rare oils go through a distillation process to preserve scents and flavours. The peculiar oils are specially made for topical use only, so make sure that you dilute with a carrier oil before application to tone down the effects.
All love this oil, and sundry is a poster child of essential oils as it is famous for its soothing and relaxing benefits. Many cultures have incorporated tea tree essential oils into their regimen for its antibacterial and antifungal benefits for many centuries. Many beauty and health enthusiasts incorporate peppermint oil into their care regimen because inhaling peppermint oil alleviates any form of stress while decongesting the body systems.
The enhancement property of orange oil is something that you cannot exaggerate because it improves the flavour of any essential oil it is blended with. This Lagunamoon essential oil is a best-seller as you can also use the oils with a diffuser. If you favour a nice massage after a tiring and long day, throw in some drops of lemongrass and lavender blend to unwind. This beginner-friendly product, which has been approved by both SGS and FDA, requires 0 expertise or particular skill to blend, take a few drops from the amber-coloured bottle, which helps preserve property, flavour, and aroma before use.
And if you are a vaper, you can use this essential oil your vaporisers to give them yourself flavourful ‘sesh time’. You will be in cloud nine with just a few drops.
Features
● 6 10 ml bottles of aromatherapy essential oils
● Easy to match and mix for dilution or to blend purposes
● Used for skincare, massage, steam inhalations, Ayurveda, etc.
5. NOW Peppermint Essential Oil
NOW Foods makes some of the purest and least expensive essential oils available. They label the oils where they cut it with a carrier. The same is true with the case of their fragrance oils as opposed to essential oils. They also offer data sheets on every oil they sell. They also comply with both cGMP and GMP manufacturing practices and are still a family-owned business since 1968. Stick to this brand if you are concerned about the safety of your essential oils.
This peppermint oil in a large 4-ounce bottle was steam-distilled from the upper parts of the mint plant.
Features
● They use QAI (Quality Assurance International) to verify certified organic ingredients.
● Each delivery is analysed on the receiving dock.
● The brand achieved Underwriter Laboratories (UL) Enhanced Certifications on all of their natural foods and personal care products in 2018.
● Refractive index- 1.459- 1.465
● Specific Gravity ranges from 0.896 to 0.908.
6. Aura Cacia Vetiver Pure Essential Oil
Aura Cacia doesn’t distil the oils in-house, and they won’t accept the irradiated products. The brand sells directly to the public and belong to the Frontier Co-op. They purchase the oils from other manufacturers after testing and sampling them. Furthermore, each shipment they send out is also tested for quality and purity.
Vetiver is useful in blends but does not smell pleasant by itself. It is used in many perfumes.
Features
● This brand has its organic products certified by Quality Assurance International (QAI).
● Satisfaction guaranteed on this brand’s oils.
● The testing this brand performs include sensory evaluation, optical rotation, specific Gravity, and gas chromatography.
7. Edens Garden Peppermint Oil
It is the top non-multilevel marketing essential oil company that was established in 2009. They source oils and raw ingredients and then relies on 3rd-party labs to perform mass spectrometry and gas chromatography on what they sell. You can request both the certificate of analysis and the MSDS sheet for each product.
They prefer soils developed with eco-friendly practices from sustainable ingredients and focus on providing pure oils without additives in fresh batches. Before shipping, each set is stored in low light in a temperature-sensitive room.
Edens Garden Peppermint Oil is super high in menthol and can help alleviate muscle aches and headaches, clear the respiratory system, and promotes a healthy digestive system.
Features
● It is a family business run by a female.
● Certified organic ingredients are unknown, but they source the raw ingredients themselves and prefer sustainable practices.
● The 3rd party laboratories do testing.
● Steam-distilled
● Cold-pressed
8. Young Living Thieves Essential Oil
Young Living is a multi-level marketer, and they continue to be one of the biggest names in the market. They manage the entire chain of production and use a seed to seal-certified suppliers. During production, scientists and a quality control team run variety of tests from the Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and combustibility to typical mass spectrometry and gas chromatography.
While many brands sell simple essential oils, this company has branched out into blends. The Thieves Oil blend is trendy and well-known. It covers pain relief, respiratory support, the immune system, and the digestion. The interesting fact about this oil is that it is food-grade to be used as flavourings and supplements.
Features
● Not certified
● Verified by third-party labs and variety of tests performed in house
● Variety of extraction methods used
● This company/ brands own their farms and have a multi-level marketing
9. doTERRA Family Essential Oils Kit
doTERRA was started in 2008 when former Young Living employees decided to establish their multi-level marketing brand. They were making over a billion in sales worldwide as in 2015. They have overseas warehouses, and offices and their headquarters are in Utah. The company promotes its intensive testing (CPTG- Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade Quality Testing) that ensures the purity of their essential oils. Their protocols include typical techniques such as organoleptic review, mass spectrometry, and gas chromatography. But they go further and test other things such as microbial contamination and heavy metals.
doTERRA’s oils are expensive, but you can get a solid intro to them with this kit. It consists of 5 ml amber glass bottles of melaleuca (tea tree oil), frankincense, oregano lavender, peppermint, and lemon. But there are also four of their best-selling blends: DigestZen, On Guard, Breathe, and Deep Blue.
Features
● Not certified
● Extensive testing performed in-house (CPTG)
● It is multi-level marketing and is founded by former employees of Young Living.
10. Healing Solutions Essential Oil Best Blends Set
The Healing Solutions Best Blends Essential Oil Set is useful if you are anxious about trying various essential oils without paying a lot of money. This blends set is comparable to big brand products such as Young Living’s Thieves Oil, On Guard, Deep Blue, and doTERRA’s Serenity.
Features
● Not certified
● GC/MS by 3rd parties results available.
● Distillation facility is compliant with ISO 9001, cushion-certified, and FDA-registered.
● More than one hundred and seventy oils derived from ingredients from around the world
Quality Essential Oils UK Buying Guide
Not all essential oils are created equal, so this buying guide will show you how to find the best quality essential oils in the UK. Essential oils are extracted from seeds, flowers, wood, peels, roots, and leaves. These oils are the life force running through the trees and plants, carrying nutrients.
Essential oils have been used for centuries since ancient China and Egypt and are still used to this day as natural remedies to a host of physical and mental ailments. Many find healing, joy, and great comfort by using essential oils, but not everyone knows the importance of finding the best essential oils for the uppermost quality. Please keep reading to find out why it’s essential to find the best quality essential oils in the UK and select organic and pure options.
The importance of Organic and Pure
Do you know that the essential oils you are using could be doing you more harm than good? If your essential oils are not organic and pure, you might not reap all the potential health benefits you use them for. They can have quite the opposite effect, damaging your health rather than improving anything and leaving you worse off than before. And that’s pretty pointless!
Some of the most prominent essential oils manufacturers compromise on quality to keep business convenient and costs low. This means that some oils out there consist of potentially harmful ingredients that you probably really don’t want to be absorbing into your skin or breathing into your lungs.
Select organic and look for the Soil Association logo
There is a growing rise in the beauty industry for certified natural and organic beauty and health products. More consumers don’t compromise on quality and want products made without any potentially harmful ingredients. Soil Association Logo says that people want products that work with nature and not against it.
There is a lot of greenwashing out there, too, which means brands will use favourable buzzwords such as ‘natural’, ‘pure’, and ‘organic’ when they are not any of these things at all. Any brand can use these words even if they are not loyal to their product.
It will help if you look for essential oils that are certified pure and organic. In the United Kingdom, the Soil Association is the leading organic certifying body. Brands must be rigorously accessed before meeting the highest organic standards that this organisation adheres to.
How to find pure essential oils
How will you purity of essential oils and what exactly does ‘pure’ mean?
Sadly, there is no standardised or official definition of purity, so it doesn’t mean a lot in essential oil’s therapeutic value. Oils that have not been processed correctly may be labelled as a hundred per cent pure but only offer a pleasant, mild fragrance without the therapeutic benefits.
It is important to note that year to year and season to season, the amount of therapeutically effective chemical constituents can change as it depends on the plant’s growing location.
A supplier or distiller adulteries their essential oils to make more money and essential oils’ purity is compromised. Such adulteration of crucial oils happens at many stages of production. To avoid adulterated essential oils in the UK, it is necessary to find honest retailers transparent about their process and specialise in essential oils. When a brand is heavily involved in selling quality essential oils and is a big part of their business, they are more likely to care about their quality.
Purity Vs Quality
Most people get mixed up with purity and quality, and it’s pretty easy to assume that purity and quality go hand in hand. But even if an essential oil is pure, it can be of pure quality.
What affects quality?
Various factors affect the quality of essential oils. This includes the storage conditions, tampering/ adulteration, the part of the plant used in the distillation of the oil, the way the botanical is stored before distillation, the way the botanical is harvested, the quality of the soil the botanical is grown in, altitude, climate/ temperature, and the amount of rainfall.
No governing body regulates the essential oils industry, so there are a few ways by which you can consider the quality of oils yourself. One of these ways is checking what the company says about where and how the plant was grown, what part of the plant is produced, and where the plants are harvested. These can all affect the quality of essential oils. Therefore, a genuine brand will be transparent about these things.
Tip- The Latin name of the plant species of essential oils will let you know where the plant is sourced from.
Essential oils where the plant is sourced from different places in the world that they are native to are much better and higher quality.
What affects purity?
Adulteration of essential oils is the primary factor that affects purity. There are many ways that essential oils are typically adulterated. These include blending other essential oils that are less expensive, blending a higher quality essential oil with a lower quality version of the same species, adding synthetically or naturally derived individual constituents, and adding synthetics. Other factors include mishandling packaging of essential oils so that it’s contaminated with oils of another species and adding vegetable oils so that our essential oils are diluted down.
Things to consider for purity and quality
It would help if you considered many factors for finding the best quality essential oils in the UK.
Cost
All essential oils need a large amount of plant matter to produce a small amount of oil, but some essential oils are more comfortable making than others. An essential oil may be too good to be true if it’s very cheap. This essentially doesn’t mean that the more affordable essential oils are not as good as, the more expensive ones, but still, be cautious when essential oils are suspiciously low. Therefore, be careful with the discount retailers as they charge the same amount for all of their oils.
As high-quality, pure essential oils are highly concentrated, so expensive oils can be cost-effective in the long run, and worth it.
Processing Methods
You should check what distillation method is being used as there are a few possible methods such as CO2 extraction, cold-press distillation, and steam distillation. It is essential to consider that some plants produce better oils as compared to different extraction oils. You can get good quality oils at an affordable cost by steam distillation method.
Also, ensure that solvents are not used to produce side effects if left behind in the essential oil. Therefore, the solvent extraction method is a big NO.
Smell
Smelling your oil is a good indicator of quality and purity. The smell won’t be as strong as a pure oil if the oil is diluted. If you were expecting a lovely and robust aroma to fill your nostrils, and you are left disappointed, then this may be a strong indicator that the oil isn’t as pure as the company promised or you hoped. You shouldn’t need any more than a few drops to get a strong smell in your diffuser.
Fresh batches
Essential oil is preserved and stored vital to maintaining its quality as essential oils’ complex organic compounds degrade over time. However, it’s hard to know how a brand keeps its essential oils unless they state it. The essential oil bottle should say when the batch was produced as the more recent, the fresher and better. Ensure that it is not stored in a clear bottle when you receive your essential oil as they should be stored in a dark bottle with a lid and pour stopper. This is because essential oils degrade from oxygen, light, and heat, so buying a bottle like this will help preserve the essential oils for as long as possible. Thus, you should store it in a cool place.
Paper Test
A paper test can test the purity of your essential oil, and for this, you need a piece of paper. Take the essential oil and cooking oil and place a drop of each on the opposite side of a paper piece, leaving it overnight. Also, make sure that you have labelled which oil is which. The essential oil should leave no ring or oily mark if it’s pure and the cooking oil should leave a greasy oil. If the essential oil has it, then it’s probably been diluted with a carrier oil. Also, consider and remember that some essential oils are naturally greasier as compared to others.
Reputation
Checking out a brand or company’s reputation and looking for glowing reviews is an excellent indicator of essential oils’ quality. Reviews are a great way of making your judgment based on real customer experience before you buy, as there are no government regulating bodies available for the same.
Service
Finding the best quality essential oils the UK involves considering customer service. You would desire a friendly person on the other end of the phone call, willing to listen to your concerns and provide advice whenever needed.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
While choosing an essential oil, it is necessary to understand its organic status, origins, processing method, purity, and quality to make a better choice for yourself and your family. Here are some of the critical questions that you should be asking-
Are the essential oils sold 100% pure, without chemical synthetics, additives or fillers?
If you want to reap maximum health benefits from your essential oil, make sure that you select a brand whose oils are 100% pure. Also, ensure that chemicals haven’t adulterated them to drive their profits and dilute the essential oil itself. Typically, these synthetic added chemicals do more harm than good.
Is the essential oil certified non-organic or organic?
If you are looking for a high-quality essential oil UK that hasn’t been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides, then you should go for the one that has been certified organic. This will give you peace that the oil will help protect your health and is organic.
Where are the essential oils sourced?
Most brands develop their oils using sustainably sourced raw materials that keep community development and environmental sustainability at their core. This helps ensure that the oil is manufactured with the best conscience while producing something 100% pure and high-quality.
How are the essential oils produced?
Essential oils can be processed in various ways, including solvent extraction, C02 extraction, cold-press distillation, and steam distillation. Of all of these, select steam distillation wherever possible as it typically produces the affordable, cleanest oil and is the most hygienic option.
The solvent should never be used as they can cause side effects and taint the essential oil. If you don’t know which extraction method has been used, select another brand instead and presume that it was solvents.
Is the brand well-known?
When it comes to selecting a high-quality essential oil, you get what you pay for. Always choose your essential oil from a trusted or well-known brand that can present all the information you need to know on the packaging and demonstrate its quality.
Conclusion
We hope this guide overview will help you choose the best quality essential oils in the UK for your spa, salon, boutique, office, or home. Therefore, select the best quality essential oil to rejuvenate your spirit energy.
The above-mentioned essential oils are the ultimate necessary oil sets because users can reap so many benefits than they bargain for. The classification of these essential oils will aid you to select the best quality essential oils every time. Keep your safety in mind for healthy fats, and use essential oils wisely, especially your skin.
No products found.
Purchase your essential oils from trustworthy suppliers or companies. You want the essential oils to be of therapeutic quality, and the pure essence of the plant should rejuvenate yourself and make your house smell good. Whatever choice you make depends entirely on you, we would like to let you know that you can never go wrong with the essential oil you pick from our list.
Best Value- NOW Peppermint Essential Oil
Best Choice- doTERRA Family Essential Oils Kit
Premium Choice- Lagunamoon Aromatherapy Essential Oils